


Having A Good Time

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, Off-World, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this isn't 'having a good time', it'll do in a pinch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Having A Good Time

Ronon’s wineglass was full again.

“Should you be drinking that much?” Even as the words left her lips, Elizabeth had the feeling she was nagging. She’d already commented on his liquor intake once this evening.

“Shouldn’t you be drinking more?” One big hand reached out and flicked her nearly full glass with a light _ting_.

Elizabeth reminded herself that Ronon wasn’t an official member of the expedition. She reminded herself that he wasn’t subject to the standards concerns and warnings about off-world behaviour. She reminded herself that she was a guest here and that significant alcoholic consumption seemed to be the way of things for this celebration.

“One reason I don’t drink is that I want to know when I’m having a good time,” she said. Even as the words left her mouth, she thought they sounded prim. At the tables around them, the locals were drinking with cheerful enthusiasm, as reckless in their enjoyment as Ronon.

No wonder this people had named him a friend to their culture.

Ronon glanced at her, lips quirked, brow arched in an expression of amused disbelief. “You’re not having a good time anyway,” he pointed out. “Have a sip. It won’t poison you.”

“I’m not worried about being poisoned.” Elizabeth nodded politely as one of the serving-boys offered her a dish of curry-like food. She accepted one spoonful of the stuff; Ronon took considerably more.

“But you’re worried about my drinking.”

Carefully, she tasted the food. As she’d told Ronon, she wasn’t worried about being poisoned. She _was_ worried about the flavours - some of the traditional dishes found in Pegasus cultures were very spicy. This one, at least, didn’t seem like it was going to burn her throat going down, although Rodney would have panicked at the lemony flavour of it.

She reached for the glass and sipped the wine-like drink. It was dry and crisp, just the way she liked wine; but she rarely indulged in more than one glass at a time when drinking.

It was simply habit.

Warmth washed over her cheek as Ronon leaned close. She felt his lips brush her hair as he murmured, “Worry more about how they’re going to take it if you don’t finish at least one drink, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth looked sharply at him, and then wished she hadn’t. He hadn’t moved out of her personal space, so she was looking into his eyes at very close range. A slight drift of heads and her mouth would brush the wiry strands of his beard before closing over the full swell of his lips.

A thrill of excitement rushed through her, the temptation to act without thinking. She drew away a little, implying rejection, and from the corner of his eye, saw him sit back and reach for his glass.

“Teyla said nothing about the drinking customs.” The Athosian woman had given a few bits of advice to Elizabeth once it became clear that the locals would accept Ronon’s presence as someone known to them, and Elizabeth’s presence as the leader of Atlantis, but no-one else.

“Teyla doesn’t know everything,” Ronon said shortly before he took a long swig, finishing the glass and signalling one of the serving-boys to refill it.

A flush swamped Elizabeth’s skin, burning off in seconds. She clamped her lips around the words, _You’re having another drink?_ Instead, she had a mouthful of the curry-like thing, trying it with what looked like a local variant of couscous. The two went well together, easing back the spiciness of the curry, and Elizabeth took another sip of wine before glancing at Ronon.

“Why don’t you tell me about the drinking customs here?” It was an invitation, an olive branch of sorts.

“You didn’t ask before.” His glance was almost contemptuous in its brevity, and she felt the flush return, hot frustration across her skin.

“Well, I’m asking now,” she said. “Tell me.”

He shrugged. “They’re proud of their vintages,” he said. “They’ve served you their best, and if you don’t finish it by the end of the meal, they’ll think you don’t appreciate it.”

“It’s not a matter of appreciation--”

“It is to them,” he rumbled. “So drink.”

She wanted to point out that his interpretation was simplistic in which to say the least. She wanted to ask about people who had problems with how much they drank and whether they _also_ had to ‘appreciate’ the wine. She wanted to point out that her appreciation of the culture went further than merely imbibing heavily of their vintages.

She took one look at his expression, fixed a smile on her face and drank. It wasn’t an effort to drink the wine, she was just wary of drinking in diplomatic situations - bad experiences on Earth.

As Teyla had taken to delicately pointing out, the Pegasus galaxy wasn’t Earth.

Then again, Elizabeth supposed as the clean, crisp liquid slid down her throat, one part of diplomacy was catering to the customs of the people with whom one was trying to negotiate.

And as the serving boy hastened to refill her cup, she saw the approving gleam in Ronon’s eye and smile.

“Now,” he said, “watch and wait.”

\--

Several hours and two glasses of wine later, having negotiated at least four agreements with four separate ‘families’ of these peoples and not having had to promise anyone a ZPM in exchange, Elizabeth stumbled up the steps of the guest-house to which she and Ronon had been assigned by their hosts.

She wasn’t drunk, not even close. The reason she stumbled was because Ronon was leaning heavily upon her shoulder for support, and although she wasn’t that much shorter, he was considerably heavier.

And very good at leaning.

With one large arm flung heavily over her shoulders, and his jaw pressing against the side of her head with a warmth and firmness that was decidedly disconcerting, Elizabeth was having trouble keeping in a straight line - hence, the stumbling.

They staggered into the neatly kept guesthouse, and she glimpsed two beds and steered Ronon towards the nearest one. Elizabeth only just managed to keep herself from being pinned beneath him as he sprawled on the mattress with abandoned ease.

“I think I’m drunk,” he announced as the thick locks of his hair bounced on the coverlet.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “I think you’re drunk, too.”

He grinned up at her - surprisingly boyish in his abandonment of the serious man who she was usually faced with in Atlantis. John, Teyla, and even Rodney, spoke of Ronon as playful, but Elizabeth had always found it difficult to believe.

With the smile now on his face, she could easily believe it.

His next words, however, confirmed his state of intoxication. “You’re pretty when you relax.”

Elizabeth felt her skin warm, even as she mustered enough self-possession to arch a brow at him before crossing the room to check out the other bed.

“You are.” He didn’t seem to be taking the hint that she wasn’t going to respond to this line of conversation. “It’s not such a bad thing, is it? You people never talk about this stuff.”

As she sat down on the bed and began untying her bootlaces, her ears still flaming, Elizabeth reflected that, while any other man attempting to have this conversation would have taken his cues from her silence on the matter, Ronon was probably going to persist. Any man who’d spent seven years on the run from the Wraith wasn’t going to give up just because a woman wasn’t answering him.

“Sheppard says you need to get laid.”

 _That_ jerked her head up with shock. “He says _what_?”

Ronon was grinning at her, and she felt the brief spurt of annoyance at John drain away, to be replaced by exasperation with Ronon as he explained, “Actually, Sheppard just said you should relax more often.”

Elizabeth bit back the retort that if John was a little less reckless, then she wouldn’t have to be so concerned all the time. There was no point in saying it to Ronon - or even to John. He’d keep doing what he did so well, and Elizabeth would keep having to clean up after him - which she did pretty well.

“I’m relaxing now,” she pointed out as she laid her boots to one side and pulled off her jacket, hanging it on one of the bedposts.

“Mmhm,” mumbled Ronon. He seemed to be trying to reach his boots, and Elizabeth watched him as he tried to sit up several times and failed before he made a huffing noise and just flopped back.

She thought about helping him out of his coat and gun-belt and sitting him up so he could reach his boots. And possibly rummaging around to find a bucket into which he could vomit if he needed. She thought about just staying on the mattress that was heavenly soft, because he’d fall asleep where he was lying and probably not wake up until morning.

She thought about feeling guilty because she hadn’t gotten up to help him. Because she would, even if he was perfectly comfortable where he was.

 _Oh, drat._

Elizabeth got out of bed and padded across the floor to Ronon’s bed. “Come on,” she said, sitting down next to him and easing an arm behind his shoulders “Let’s get you out of this.”

She ignored the grin that stole across his face beneath the rough beard that covered his lips and chin. “You’re undressing me?”

Maybe it was the alcohol in her blood, but Elizabeth had a sudden vision of taking hold of the lapels of his shirt and ripping the edges open as she fastened her mouth on his and slid her hands down the skin beneath his clothes. “I’m going to help you out of your coat,” she said pointedly, although she could feel her cheeks heating up again.

Ronon sat up, one leg kicking out as he tried to regain his balance, and nearly taking her down into the bed with him. Elizabeth righted him and herself, spat out the dreadlock that had bounced into her mouth, ignored the wave of sweat-and-spice male that washed into her nostrils, and began helping him take off the coat.

She wasn’t sure if he was deliberately being difficult, but it took longer than she expected to get the coat off him - possibly because he kept on trying to reach for his boots as she was dragging it off his shoulders.

“Sit still!” The scold seemed to work, because he promptly pushed his shoulders back and looked very chastened as she tugged the coat off him and tossed it across the foot of the bed.

His coat smelled of him - quite disturbingly so.

Even more disturbing was the image Elizabeth had of wrapping herself in the coat to go to sleep.

When she turned back to him, he was trying to bend over to reach his boots, the long drape of his dreadlocks swinging down past his jaw. It seemed Ronon was having trouble with his laces, for the expression he lifted to her was sheepish. “I can’t untie them.”

She sighed as she crouched down beside the bed to help unpick the hide laces. Next thing she knew, she’d be called upon to tuck him in, read him a bedtime story, and kiss him goodnight.

There were days when Elizabeth wondered just how she’d managed to end up playing Wendy to the Atlantis men’s Lost Boys. Except without the flying.

Did that make Teyla Tinkerbell?

The thought amused her enough that she hardly noticed Ronon shifting around on the edge of the bed until she’d loosened his laces and risen to her feet.

He’d pulled off his shirt and was lying back with his hands resting on his bare stomach, eyes closed. Without that eagle-eyed gaze upon her, Elizabeth took a moment to appreciate the well-bronzed muscles of his chest and belly, from the broad shoulders down to the narrow hips. Her fingers twitched as she contemplated reaching out and tracing his ‘snail trail’ with her fingertips, sliding underneath the edge of his leathers and... _._

Elizabeth decided that a goodnight kiss was off the books. It would get her into all kinds of trouble.

She tilted her head as he toed off his boots. “Can you manage the rest?”

He opened one eye. “Yeah. I think.”

But when she turned away, a warm, hard hand closed about her wrist, yanking her onto the bed with a hard jerk. Then there was bare skin under her hands, and the bristle-rough edge of his jaw against her cheek. And cool air slid up her back a moment before his hand banished the cool with a warm slow slide up her spine beneath her shirt.

Elizabeth fumbled for somewhere to put her hands that wasn’t on his body, but the mattress was no help, sinking hand and wrist deep into its soft depths and pushing her closer to him than she liked. “Ronon...”

“Mmph,” he grunted, his mouth turned a little and his lips brushed her ear. “Nice.” Beneath her body, he shifted, hips and belly and thighs, and heat touched her cheeks as desire blossomed in her belly, tingling her nipples, and aching in her loins.

“Ronon, let me up.”

“No.” This time, there was no mistaking the playfulness in his expression. Elizabeth gave an extremely undignified squeal as he rolled over and pinned her _beneath_ him, so she was sinking into the feather-soft mattress with the very heavy, very muscular, half-naked Ronon on top of her.

God, he was _big_!

“Ronon...” She made her voice as much of a warning as possible, even though her heart was hammering at her chest and her breath was short. The combination of scent, touch, and sight of Ronon was reminding her just how long it had been since she’d been in this position with a man.

“Stay,” he mumbled into her throat. “You smell nice.”

 _I could say the same about you._

Except it would have been a blatant lie, because Ronon didn’t smell ‘nice’ at all. He smelled naughty and wicked and decadent - even if he was snuggled up against her like she was a fluffy blue blanket for a little boy.

Elizabeth thought about pushing him away and climbing out of the bed. She thought about pressing up against him in an arch that would meld them from groin to mouth. She thought about tomorrow morning and waking up naked next to a man she’d seduced the night before.

Her mom used to say Elizabeth thought too much.

Unfortunately, at nearly forty, _not_ thinking too much was difficult.

It was a habit.

And, judging by the soft snore that issued from the giant of a man who seemed to have decided she was his teddy bear for the night, he wasn’t going to be moving anytime soon.

She could ease him off her and climb out of course, but...it had been a while since she’d slept in the same bed as a man, and the scent of him was distracting, and one of the effects of the wine she’d drunk earlier was sleepiness, and she didn’t feel like moving - certainly not when she was comfortably ensconced with a man who could, in a pinch, be described as a ‘gorgeous hunk’.

 _You’re not having a good time anyway._

Maybe she wasn’t. But Elizabeth figured that if this wasn’t ‘a good time’ then it would do in a pinch.

\--

She woke up in the grey pre-dawn, gasping slightly as the last delicate frisson of pleasure dissipated through her sensitised flesh. Her body felt heavy, satiated, a lassitude weighing her down into the feather mattress beside the man who drowsed on his belly, one bare arm comfortably snugged beneath her breasts.

A quick shift proved her fully clothed, and she eased herself out from beneath Ronon’s arm and slipped from the bed to sneak over to grab her shoes and discarded jacket and slip out into the cool dawn air.

Thankfully, he slept on, the occasional soft snore emitting from his turned-away face as she opened the door and closed it gently behind her. Elizabeth didn’t think she was capable of dealing with Ronon Dex in all his morning glory right now.

In fact, she’d be more than happy not to have to deal with him at all. Ever again. Because while she was fully clothed and he was at least half-clothed, she had a feeling that ‘nothing’ was not quite the description for what had happened last night, even if none of it had been conscious. Her dreams were nothing more than an fast-fading memory, but Elizabeth had the feeling that they had been X-rated and that Ronon had featured prominently in them. Without clothing.

She felt hot in the cool morning, and the path past the guesthouse beckoned invitingly.

Elizabeth would go for a brisk walk - as well as a long one - and when she got back, it would be broad daylight and she and Ronon would be cool and collected adults about whatever had or hadn’t happened last night.

 _Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, my dear._

She squished the mocking little voice, and started off down the path.

It was a long walk, and a pleasant one. The grey sky brightened to cloudy-pale and vivid blue, and as the planet warmed up with the sun’s rising, Elizabeth no longer felt the need to hug her jacket close around her. She began meeting some of the early risers among the locals, and engaged them in talk - not all of it about the trade possibilities of Atlantis.

And when Ronon arrived just as the head honcho began thanking her for their exchanges, Elizabeth was completely in her element and didn’t notice him at all.

Or, at least, didn’t notice him _much._

Their departure from the village was fêted amidst the presentation of several more bottles of wine and the written details of the contracts she’d negotiated last night. Elizabeth was impressed by the swiftness with which the details had been drawn up - and their accuracy. It was all here - her memory quite unblurred by the glasses of wine she’d had.

When she did dare a glance at Ronon, he seemed normal - or, as normal as she’d ever known him. He didn’t seem to be avoiding her or watching her unusually closely, and as they left the settlement and set out towards the Stargate, an easy silence fell between them until they reached the last fence beyond the village.

“Enjoy yourself?”

Maybe there was more in the lazy voice than she was supposing. Maybe it was just her conscience pricking her after the very heated fantasies invading her dreams last night. Elizabeth didn’t rise to the bait - if bait it even was.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “I did.”

“Even with the wine?”

“Even with the wine.”

Silence followed, but when she glanced at him, he was watching her and grinning - that same smile of youthful mischief that he’d given her last night. “Was it just the wine, then?”

Elizabeth willed herself not to blush, and for a wonder, her skin obliged. But she forced herself to hold Ronon’s knowing gaze. “No.” Then, when the smile began to turn into a smirk, she added, “I would have enjoyed myself without the wine.”

Any other man would have been chastened. Ronon just laughed - a brief snort of laughter - and rumbled, “Would you try it next time without the wine?”

He wasn’t talking about the celebration.

She let him wait for her answer all the way to the DHD, before she turned to regard him and gave him the coolest, most secretive smile she could summon. “Maybe.”

And with that, she began dialling home.


End file.
